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Munyaradzi Musiiwa, Midlands Correspondent
GWERU-based cement manufacturing company, Sino Zimbabwe Cement Company, has been certified by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO).

The global standards body is a non-governmental international organisation with a membership of 161 national standards bodies. Through its members, it brings together experts to share knowledge and develop voluntary, consensus-based, market relevant international standards that support innovation and provide solutions to global challenges.

Sino Zimbabwe cement’s ISO certification will make its products attractive to compete on the international market. The company imports five percent of its products and is looking forward to increasing this to about 20 percent.

In an interview, SZCC managing director, Mr Wang Yong, said the company’s systems have been approved by the international standards management body.

“We applied for ISO approval and we were successful because a few weeks ago we received an approval. This is after we continually produced and supplied quality products. The certification that we got from ISO is a systems qualification. Our products are also certified by Standards Association of Zimbabwe (SAZ),” he said.

Sino Zimbabwe manufactures three types of cement, which are MC 22.5 X, PC 32.5 N and 42.5N. Most of the cement is consumed by the Zimbabwean market, with a small amount exported to neighbouring countries. The company is scheduled to produce PC 42.5R this year to meet the ever-increasing demand for infrastructure construction in the country. ISO certification is instrumental in facilitating international trade by ensuring that products and services are safe, reliable and of good quality.

Sino-Zimbabwe Cement Company (SZCC) was co-built in the 1990s by China National Building Material Company (CNBM) and the Industrial Development Corporation of Zimbabwe (IDCZ) in line with China’s “Going Out” strategy. With the whole line of state-of the-art equipment imported from China, SZCC, as one of the three cement manufacturers in the country, has an annual production capacity of 300 000 tonnes of cement.